Doin' the Electric Slide!

The shed has power!!!!! Just finished wiring it, got all the plugs wired, got the main plug wired, and it all works!!! The power coming to it is just a regular outdoor extension cord coming through a window in the house to a regular outlet, so it is temporary power, but soon I'll buy some direct bury wire (the Romex we have isn't heavy duty enough) so we can run a 20amp line direct from our main breaker box in the house, bury it along the way to the shed (via the greenhouse so we have permanent power there too) and install a breaker box on the shed! But in the meantime, all the outlets work (but won't be able to pull too much power, not enough to run a space heater, for example, which is how I will be heating it in the winter), the lights work, yay! So next on the docket is insulation, it's ready to be insulated, I just don't quite know how yet... ;) It's not hard, I just don't know the tricks. Then after that, sheeting it, then doing something with the floor, and voila! She'll be ready for paint, then furnishings!!! :D I am SO excited!!!

Speaking of furnishings, Red and I talked about my plans for the desk cabinets that we will take out of the house to make room for a pantry closet, and in the process of that talk, also decided to remove the two little hanging cabinets in our laundry closet, AND the little annoying counter cubboard thing and cabinets in the teeny little 'hall' that currently serves as a not so effective linen closet (our plan there is to actually build a real linen closet, it's probably the most wasted ineffective space in the whole house!) so I will get a TON more built in furnishings in my shed than I had anticipated!!! WOOT!!! We won't remove all those things until later in the fall, I think we plan on doing at least the pantry closet sometime in the fall, but perhaps we'll make it a big project weekend or two and do that and the linen closet and some shelves in the laundry closet, all in one fell swoop! Until then, I have my sewing cabinet/table, and a folding 4' table that I'll use in the shed, they'll serve quite nicely until we take out the various cabinets in the house! SO EXCITED!!!!!!! :D

Logoified!

Woohoo! I have finally settled on a logo for Made In The Mountains! It's above here, and is on my website! (Which still isn't public yet, hold your horses!) That actually is the real Vallecito mountain skyline, but I wanted to logo to be simple enough to be embroiderable, and to look cute on small printed labels. It might evolve in the future, but for now I think it'll do nicely!

As for the website, my inventory is growing but not quite as rapidly as I would hope. Other projects (the shed) and real life (real life...) tend to get in the way of my kiddo free crafting time (Wyatt doesn't let me work on projects while he's up, unless he is thoroughly contained and happy in his highchair, and that certainly doesn't last long... Plus that's usually my chance to sneak in a bite or two anyways...). I'm working on it though, as much as I can, and am planning on taking the plunge and actually purchasing and registering my domain name quite soon, and shortly after that hopefully I'll have enough stuff ready to open up the webstore! :-D

The shed hasn't made any progress since my last post, and probably won't until at least after this weekend. We have guests this weekend (WOOHOO!) and will be busy splitting firewood all day Saturday with them (not so woohoo, but we all need it!), though this is the last weekend for a while anyways that we definately have other plans. Hopefully I'll be able to convince Red to help me finish up the shed sooner rather than later! The prospect of all the storage space its completion will free up in the house should be incentive enough!

If I had a hammer...

The craft shed is on it's way to being, well, a craft shed, but it's taking a while (as could only be expected!). The window is in, more lumber was added for nailers (to attach the sheeting to), and the wiring is almost done... Drilling holes through lots and lots of studs with a really long paddle bit is a PITA! Especially through the studs around the window, since we added an extra trim stud on either side to help support the weight of the roof more. But the good news is, the roof won't collapse. ;) What's next is to finish the wiring (the romex is mostly run, except through a few studs I couldn't do myself, then I just need to install the plug boxes), then insulate it (not looking forward to that... Boatbuilding school left me incredibly sensitive to fiberglass), and then sheet it (I'm using CDX plywood, a lower grade plywood that I think is 3/8" thick, I wanted 1/4" ply with one nicer side, but they only had three sheets, and I needed 14...). After sheeting, I'll do a spackle number on the seams and any holes in the plywood where knots were in the wood, then paint the walls (yellow! YAY!), and voila, she'll be ready for furnishings! (still not sure what the plan will be for the floor, it's uneven since the building isn't totally leveled, so I can't do anything rigid. We have some leftover carpet from when we carpeted Wyatt's room, but not enough to do the whole floor, plus I'd rather it be sweepable. For now I probably won't do much of anything to it.) As far as that goes, I have a sewing table/chest which opens out to hold up a drop leaf to make it longer, (closed it looks like a nice bureau) so that will go in there. Eventually, we will be removing the desk and cabinets that are in our mudroom/office/laundryroom, and building a pantry/coat closet in their place, so that desk and cabinets will go into the shed. Until then, I have a 4' plastic folding table that will do quite nicely. Since it may not be entirely critterproof, I'll keep all my fabric and other vulnerable materials in rubbermaid containers, so they'll be stacked up in a corner (I thought of building shelves, but it'd be that much more materials, and the boxes stack nicely anyways). I'm so excited for it, I'm hoping we'll get a chance to work on it more soon, but at this point I need help (never insulated before so not sure exactly what to do), and our weekends have been and will be pretty busy for a bit. We shall see! It's fun though, and exciting, and I can't wait to have dedicated space to spread out all my stuff and get down to business!!! :-D

Working on it!

Well, my website is kindof at a standstill as I make more inventory for the store. My hands, however, are certainly busy! I am currently making a cute crocheted boys hat out of fun variegated brown yarn, it'll be cute! I also got a set of Knifty Knitters knitting looms, and I have to say they are AWESOME! My reason for trying them out is because I have a bunch of really cool yarn that my mother in law got me, but it is nearly impossible to knit or crochet with because it has holes in it (hard to describe...). Fortunately, it is perfect on the loom! So my first loom project is a skinny scarf with this purple fuzzy yarn, it is turning out super cute! I'm glad I have two skeins of this color yarn, cause I'm definately going to make one for myself!

I have been unsuccessful at finding a flower press to buy, and though they are very easy to make I haven't had the time or the materials to make one yet. And still no further progress on my shed, but it will happen soon I hope! Our cherry tree is doing awesome, and the cherries are starting to ripen! The smaller trees we left uncovered (the big one has bird netting over it) have already ripened, and are being ravaged by the robins and chipmunks. They're much smaller and have a much smaller yeild than the big tree so I'm not too upset about it, plus since we displaced the robin's nest and made them lose their egg, I feel like we owe them this at least... We'll still get plenty off the big tree! I imagine we'll be able to pick in about a week! Yay! Ok, enough writing, back to the loom!

Making a name...

I'm now deep in the throws of building a website and online store to sell my crafty goods! It is VERY much in the preliminary stages, so I won't release the web address yet, but it is so exciting! So far I've set it up for free, though I do plan on paying for the hosting service soon to get my own unique domain name and to remove ads from the website. Also, with the free service you are limited to 5 items in the online store, and that just simply won't do! (Even though right now I only have 4 items... LOL!) Once I start paying for it, I'll be able to have 30 items, so clearly I've got my work cut out for me to fill those spots! So far I'm focusing on these super cute baby and toddler hats, they are fast to make and the materials are inexpensive. I do also plan on making some pressed flower note cards with the paper I made left over from the books I made two Christmases ago, and hopefully I'll come up with other fun gifty items adults will appreciate (not to say adults don't appreciate cute baby hats, but usually the adults who do appreciate them are the moms of the babies they want the hats for...) ;) (Now how's that for a run-on sentance ending with a preposition?) So far the website is designed with a pre-designed template, though I have replaced the generic photo logo with my own, if not temporary, logo. I'd like to eventually learn html and css so that I could design my own site from scratch, but for now I am actually really liking the predesigned site, and with a little tweaking it has become my own!

And as a teaser preview, here are a couple of the items I have already added to the inventory... Drool away!

I'm working on it, I swear!

As I have posted before, I usually slow down in the summer craftwise... But things are starting to pick up again! My shed is very nearly empty, there are a handful of things left to be dealt with, then I need to cleancleanclean it, decritterify it (there's an unoccupied birdsnest and who knows what else in there), bug bomb it, and then it'll be ready for me to insulate and sheet and install a window! Woohoo! It probably won't be functional until fall, but I'll be sure to take lots of pictures along the way to track the progress! I'm so excited for it! Woohoo!

I've also been thinking hard about setting up a Made in the Mountains online store so that I can sell my crafts. We could certainly use any extra income, and it would be fun! I'm in the research phase of what hosting service and ecommerce service to use, and I need to build up an inventory before I put anything online, but I'm excited about it! I think my biggest item will be my crocheted hats, mostly for babies/toddlers/kids, they are fast and easy to make and the materials are inexpensive. Yay! Keep an eye out for more on the website! :D

I just made this hat for my best highschool friend's new baby girl, and I'm about to make another one for her 2 year old daughter as well (Kate, if you see this, act surprised when they arrive!). This is my first floppy brimmed hat, I totally winged it (no pattern) and I think it came out great! I'm going to add a grosgrain ribbon around the brim so it can be tightened if it's too loose or used as an under chin tie, but here it is thusfar! So cute! (I'm going to use the foam ball it's on later for photographing hats for the website, I only just got it today so I haven't had the chance to put it on the dowel and make it look nice!)

Ok, I just added the ribbon and had to post a picture of it finished, cause it is SO DANG CUTE!

Summer is here!

Yet again, it's been a while since I've updated here! Perhaps I hit a crafting slowdown since the weather has been so nice? We've been so busy with the garden, I think I have a good excuse! Though late Spring has brought with it several new ideas for fun projects! Our ornamental cherry trees in the front are blooming like it's nobodies business, and their fragrance is AMAZING! (Actually we're not sure what kind of trees they are, they are some sort of ornamental (inedible) cherry, or perhaps some kind of Japanese plum. The birds don't eat the fruit, so I'm assuming they are poisonous.) I've been wanting to bottle their scent for some time now, and it seems like I just might be able to! I've done some research into perfume making, and it seems easy enough, if I have enough time left in their blooming season! To make perfume or essential oil, you need to have a continuous supply of fresh petals for at least a week, if not two, and I might have missed that window of opportunity this year (if so, next year I'll be prepared!)(and maybe I'll still try it this year with our oriental lilies!). Despite that, I plan on picking up some supplies today to try my hand at it! I'll be using techniques described in Back To Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, which is really the seminal book of homesteading self-sufficiency in my opinion. It is full not only of great crafts and recipes and DIY projects, but also has all sorts of info on all matters homesteading- building, farming, raising livestock, really you name it, it probably has it. It's new Third edition is great, I really do recommend it!
Anyways, back to the perfume making- I'm not sure whether I'll try making perfume, or essential oil. To make perfume, you need a fair amount of lard (or crisco), melted onto 10 or so shallow plates. Then you score a crisscross pattern in the solidified lard, and put the petals inbetween two sandwiched plates, and seal them with tape. Every day or two, open up the plates, replace the wilted petals with fresh, and repete about 8 times. Then, discard the petals, put the lard in glass jars, and fill with ethyl alcohol, seal and store in a cool dark place for 6-8 months (!), shaking each jar once every day (!!!)... After 6-8 months, you strain out the fat and add a fixative oil (such as musk or ambergris, or sandalwood oil). Fairly involved process, no? Essential oil is much faster and less involved to make. You put petals in a jar filled with an odorless oil, replacing the petals with fresh ones every day or two, repeting about 8 times. Still as involved as the beginning of making perfume, but thankfully you stop there! I'm not sure which one I'll try (or if I'll try both). I'm also not sure what oil to use for essential oil, what oil there is that is odorless and safe for the skin... We shall see!

I suppose I haven't been entirely projectless lately. I did sew Wyatt's curtains for his room (finally! I've had the valance since before he was born!) not too long ago, though I think that's about it! (he's still snoozing now, or I'd go take a picture! I'll post one soon!) I think fall and winter are naturally more crafty times of year for me, with the weather keeping you indoors and the prospect of the holiday season approaching! Though late summer is typically the time I'm most busy with food-related crafts, namingly canning and preserving! Our sour cherry trees are just beginning to lose their petals, and it's almost time to cover them with bird netting! They're all looking very healthy, so if we manage to keep them well enough protected from being pecked clean, we should have a very delishous harvest in about a month and a half! Also, our recent bout of very rainy weather has forced Red to work on his shop rather than in the garden, which is good news for me, cause once his shop is done he can move his tools out of my soon-to-be craft shed! Yay! He is very nearly done, and I think the only big thing left to do is to have a trench dug to bring power to it from the pedistal, and then have LPEA (our electric supplier) come out and install an RV pedistal! (and we have a friend who has agreed to bring a backhoe over to do the digging!) Hooray! So hopefully soon I'll be able to begin work on making the shed my craft shed! Can't wait! :D